Autism and Tone of Voice: An Essay
Autism is a spectrum. Autism also presents differently in everyone.
That being said, I would be surprised if a single autistic person out there has never had their tone of voice criticised in a way that absolutely knocks the wind out of them, because they hadn’t realised there was anything off with their voice.
As a child, this criticism comes in the form of being told you’re giving ‘attitude’. You, of course, have no idea what attitude you could possibly be giving, because you thought you were saying something your parents couldn’t possibly have an issue with. When you raise this, they tell you that the sentence itself would have been fine, if only you hadn’t said it like that.
It’s upsetting, to be completely unable to understand what you did wrong, especially when you’re already struggling to understand so many little things about this world.
As you grow, more and more people start to make these comments. A woman on the bus won’t stop shooting you funny looks, because you’re talking too loudly in your excitement about your favourite tv show, and you don’t understand why she keeps looking at you until a friend explains later. Then, a few months after, you and that friend are having one of your classic, entertaining debates about something that doesn’t really matter, and they groan and ask: “why does everything always have to be an argument with you?” And you are left completely stunned, because– had you been arguing? Have you been arguing every single time you’ve had one of these debates, and have they been hating it this entire time, and is that why they seemed to be busy every single time you asked if they wanted to grab coffee?
Eventually, you move on. You stop feeling so paranoid that every word out of your mouth is being judged, until you’re correcting someone on something, and they say: “Why do you always have to be right all the time?” which is a terribly confusing thing to hear, because why wouldn’t everyone else want to be right? Why would the rest of the world be content to believe the wrong things, when they could learn the truth? And then it gets worse, because they start to say that it wasn’t that deep, and they didn’t actually care, and you feel stupid for talking about this subject for half an hour– but also don’t understand why they bothered arguing the point at all if they didn’t care. After all, the actor in this show is the same one you saw in something else, and if that didn’t matter to them, why did they disagree? Why did they keep on disagreeing whilst you tried to convince them to imagine him without a beard and inside a jungle, and why did they keep insisting they just couldn’t picture it when you googled the cast lists and they both turned up the same name?
But now you feel stupid, and silly, and honestly, just confused. You weren’t shouting at them, were you? You weren’t insulting them, or acting like the thing you were trying to tell them should have been common knowledge, so how could they possibly have gotten offended? How could the desire to be correct be something that they don’t have?
It is confusing. It never stops being confusing.
But one day, you will find someone who makes it a little easier. Someone who is also autistic, so they don’t misunderstand you in the way the Neurotypicals do. It feels good. It feels freeing. They are your safe space, and you are theirs, and you understand each other wholly. There is no need to put words in each other’s mouths, no interpreting things from your ‘tone’ that you did not explicitly say, and it seems to everyone else like you understand each other so well that you must be reading each other’s minds.
And then, one day, you are watching tv together. A character does something that breaks your heart, but you are so invested that it’s just a beautiful tragedy. And you turn to your partner, and they shake their head, and say: “bad writing.” You don’t understand. This is your favourite show in the world, so you ask them to explain, and they do– they say the character should know better than this. And because you care ever so deeply about this little world that you watch, you explain how the story has shown over the season that she does not, in fact, know better. Her actions are no surprise– they have been specifically set up so that the only way the story could end is here.
But they don’t get it. No matter how many times you try to point out the scenes that led to this moment, they do not like this ending– and their opinion would be fine, except that it seems based on them not seeing how the character has been set up in such a way that it makes complete sense they would end up where they do. And whilst, yes, you are upset when explaining this because it is your favourite show and you want them to love it as much as you do, and it pains you that perhaps they do not– you are also not upset at them. You are animated, because you are desperate for them to see– if they could just understand the backstory, you think, they would understand this ending, and they would love it as much as I do– and you hear them starting to raise their voice, but they are autistic with no control over their volume or tone either, so you assume it is not indicative of their actual emotions. Because why would they be getting upset, when the only logical thing is that they would be trying their best to wrap their head around your point?
But then the dam breaks. Because they are upset, and it’s too late for you to be able to fix it, because suddenly their agitation is so very visible. They say your tone is aggressive, and you cannot for the life of you figure out what that means, because you weren’t trying to be. How can you be acting aggressively when you wanted nothing more than to explain to them the thoughts behind a fictional character’s actions?
And then, worst of all, the hardest punch to the heart– when you tell them that you really weren’t trying to be, they tell you that they have suspected, before now, that you struggle with tone. This instance had felt the most real, but they’d noticed this before.
Your heart shatters. You thought they understood you better than anyone else– and clearly they had, because they understood your intentions enough that this was the first time they had mentioned it– and yet they only suspected. Whilst you wrack your brain, unable to think of any time in your life you had ever spoken aggressively to your partner, it had happened enough times that they could call instances to mind within seconds. And the fact that they had only suspected, which implies that they were not, in fact, sure that you weren’t intending any aggression…
It is horrifically upsetting. It brings back memories of your parents berating you for having an attitude you did not know you had, and friends leaving you for your desire to always have the correct facts.
It makes you want to write an essay, both to get those feelings out, and because you are sure that no matter how specific you get with your examples, there are other autistics out there who have gone through the same thing.
And it hurts, almost, that the moment you open your laptop, the words start flowing. You do not have to think about them, or re-read what you have just written to prompt the next sentence. It all simply flows, because this is a struggle you know intimately, that you have known in every stage of your life, in so many different ways.
At least, you think, you are not alone. Even if you never speak, there are others out there experiencing this same confusion about how the minds of others work, and whilst you might never find an answer; might never be able to stop people assuming an intention behind your words that is never there if you do not explicitly say it– you are reading this, and we are in the same boat.
And I wish I could give the both of us a little more hope than just that, but it is better than being the only one.
